Short-Term TANF Extension Act

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2943) to extend the program of block grants to States for temporary assistance for needy families and related programs through December 31, 2011.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on the subject of the bill under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise today in support of H.R. 2943, legislation to temporarily extend the authorization of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and related programs.

Since it replaced the New Deal-era welfare program in 1996, TANF has been successful at cutting welfare dependents by 57 percent through the end of last year. Even more importantly, by promoting work among single parents, who are the most common welfare recipients, it helped significantly reduce child poverty in female-headed families over time.

Even at today's elevated unemployment rates, TANF continues to promote more work and earnings and less poverty. But despite this general progress, TANF can and should be strengthened to do more, especially to help more low-income families work and support themselves in the years ahead. Unfortunately, too many parents are exempted from work requirements today for a variety of reasons we learned at a recent hearing held by the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Human Resources, which I am privileged to chair.

But given the current administration's support for only a straight 1- year extension of current law, which is a view shared by the other body, there are limited prospects for making needed changes to TANF before the program expires at the end of this month. That's the reason for the short-term extension before us today.

This 3-month extension will provide an opportunity for Congress, including the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, to review TANF alongside other entitlement programs this fall. Important questions need to be asked, including what is the proper funding level for these programs and how can they best be focused on engaging low- income parents in work and other productive activities so more can support themselves in the long run.

Another thing this additional time will let us do is to take action to close what some call the ``strip club loophole.'' This refers to an outright abuse of taxpayer trust permitted under current law when adults on welfare spend taxpayer funds on liquor, gambling, tattoos, or even visits to strip clubs. As recent exposes have revealed, too many welfare recipients access taxpayer funds at cash machines in casinos, liquor stores, strip clubs, and even on cruise ships.

Some States have already taken action to close this loophole by blocking access to welfare EBT cards at such establishments. There is bipartisan legislation to require all States to do that, and doing so is something of particular interest to our colleague, Senator Coburn. I share his commitment to getting this done this fall and urge all my colleagues to support action that we will take to close this loophole.

The legislation before us is designed to provide time for a closer review of and action on these sorts of issues. Importantly, it does not add to our deficit since it simply continues current TANF funding for 3 months. I note that TANF is a fixed block grant, which is not adjusted for inflation.

I wish we were debating legislation today that extended and actually improved TANF programs so that they work better; but given the impediments before us, the bill before the House today offers the best chance that we will be able to do that in the near future, and I urge all of my colleagues to support it.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's suggestion that this legislation should be amended to revive the TANF Supplemental Grants program.

TANF supplemental grants expired in June 2011 in accordance with legislation Democrats crafted last year that President Obama signed into law. These payments have now expired and are not payable under current law. Extending them would mean spending more money to revive the program, which is beyond the scope of what we're doing today in maintaining only current TANF programs.

Since TANF supplemental grants were first paid, about $4 billion in extra TANF programs have been paid out only to a minority of States. At some point, we have to ask when such supplemental spending should come to an end. The last Congress, which, again, was led by Democratic majorities, said the end should come this past June. I respect that judgment.

The committee is obviously aware of Mr. Doggett's bill to extend these payments yet again, but we don't know how he would pay for that since the bill he introduced includes no pay-for. That would mean increasing our current historic deficits even more.

All States received a share of $5 billion in special welfare funds in the 2009 stimulus bill. That was on top of almost $17 billion in TANF block grant payments all States receive each year, including those that previously collected supplemental grants. The States that collected supplemental grants received about $913 million of that $5 billion in one-time funds, or the equivalent of almost three years of supplemental grant payments.

I appreciate the gentleman's argument for extending these payments by reviving the now-ended Supplemental Grants program. The legislation before us does not do that, since it simply extends current law programs. But I know he and I will continue to have fruitful discussions and work together about this and other TANF funding and related issues, and I appreciate his continued input and effort.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2943 simply is a short-term continuation of Welfare to Work programs that have successfully cut welfare dependence and promoted work. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation and to work with us to design a long-term reauthorization bill that fixes flaws in the system, fixes broken processes and allows agencies to communicate in a more holistic way as we address this to eliminate waste of taxpayer dollars and ultimately to design a long-term reauthorization bill that further promotes work and independence from welfare.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, this is a bipartisan bill, which I fully support, but it is important to understand what this bill does and what it does not do. It is important to understand which provisions we agree upon and which ones we accept as only being better than the alternative of allowing this important law and all those who count on it to expire next week.

Last week, the Census Bureau reported that more Americans were poor in 2010 than at any time on record. Regrettably, my home State of Texas was leading the way with one of the highest poverty rates anywhere in America.

The Texas Center for Public Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan group, recently reported that ``The heart of the American Dream is at risk in Texas.'' For the first time in generations, there are more people falling out of the middle class than joining its ranks. And what a struggle it is for those families trying to hold on.

In a neighborhood near downtown San Antonio, Andrew Ramos and his wife, Nina, are struggling just to keep food on the table for themselves and their 2-year-old daughter. Andrew lost his job, and Nina works at a local pizza parlor where she makes about $200 a week. There are so many families just like the Ramos family--almost one in five in poverty in Bexar County.

As John Turner at the Capital Area Food Bank concludes: Hunger is a result of lack of income and of a livable wage. It affects too many of our neighbors, he says, under the current Texas economic model.

The demands on our food banks, which serve as effective public- private partnerships, are immense. The Capital Area Food Bank, this year, is delivering 50 percent more food to poor people than it did 3 years ago.

But I don't really hear anyone facing up to this harsh reality--not our Governor in Texas, not the President of the United States, and certainly not the leadership here in the House. In fact, the Administration has shown little interest and almost no guidance in reforming this legislation.

Rather than respond to rising deprivation and declining opportunity, this legislation continues for another 3 months, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Act. This is a program that today provides direct assistance to only one in every five children living in Poverty in America. That's the lowest level of poor children receiving direct assistance since 1965. And of course in Texas it's much worse, where only one in every 20 poor children receive direct assistance from

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 additional minute.

I think also of the words of Claudia Herrington, who works at El Buen Samaritano, dealing largely with Latino families. She writes: ``This is not the American Dream I believe in. This is not the American Dream my father believed in when he emigrated from Cuba here in the 1960s. I know our country is better than that, regardless of political affiliation. And I know that investment in our people and their ability to earn a decent living is a worthwhile policy.''

We need a policy that is more safety net than hole, and I hope eventually we can work together to achieve that.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I would yield myself 15 seconds to say that under Democratic leadership we extended the supplemental TANF program that Governor Rick Perry was so proud about in 2001. We extended it four times. The only reason that it existed in the spring of this year was because of our extensions. It should be extended once again, and I hope in the process we can do that.

I would now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel).

(Mr. RANGEL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington State, the former chair of this subcommittee, Mr. McDermott.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the House should approve this important bipartisan legislation today. To fail to approve this modest extension would cause even more people to suffer with the expiration of these programs next week.

Mr. Speaker, it may not be in vogue to discuss the problems of poor people in America today, but we need to hear more about it in this House. We need to hear more about it in Washington, DC.

Certainly we want to support and encourage the middle class in America--very, very important--but we need to create more opportunity to broaden that middle class. For the many people who struggle and hope that lives will be better for their children and that they will face less obstacles than their parents have faced, we need to provide that temporary assistance to needy families. The current program leaves out too many and forgets too many of those families in their struggle.

The omission of TANF supplemental grants, which we renewed four times in the last two Congresses, is not being renewed here, which means that in Texas and in so many high-poverty States, we will not have the support that Governor Rick Perry once called for. We will have a broadened gap and a lack of services.

Many of the dollars that we've received in that program in Texas have gone into child protective services to protect abused and neglected children. They will no longer have that assistance. I hope in the course of the legislative process of the renewal of this legislation, we might eventually get TANF supplemental grants into the bill.

Today we see so many who are losing the opportunity to share in the American Dream. We have an opportunity to continue at least a minimal level of support to them. We should do that, but we should commit ourselves to doing even more.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 2943, ``The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Extension Act,'' which extends the authorization of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) state block grant program for three months, through December 31, 2011. Under current law, the program's authorization is set to expire on October 1, 2011, at the end of FY 2011. H.R. 2943 authorizes ``such sums as may be necessary'' to carry out the program at the same level as FY 2011 or $16.48 billion according to CRS and extends funding for the basic block grant, healthy marriage and responsible fatherhood competitive grants, mandatory child care grants, and certain other funds.

As Chair of the Congressional Children's Caucus, I am keenly aware that the youngest among us often suffers the most when programs, like TANF, are underfunded. We must take a proactive role in protecting children from lives of abject poverty.

I represent the 18th Congressional district in Houston, Texas. In my district, more than 190,000 people live below the poverty line. Programs like TANF are vital to these families. At a time when the Census Bureau places the number of Americans living in poverty at the highest rate in over 50 years.

Across our nation the poverty rate has climbed to 14.3 percent in 2009, the highest level since 1994 and is likely to continue to climb. At this time children are again bearing the brunt, more than one in five children lived in families with incomes under the official poverty level which was $22,050 for a family of four in 2009. Similarly more than one in five children lived in households that did not always have the resources to purchase food.

In 2008, there were 15.45 million impoverished children in the nation, 20.7% of America's youth. Further, The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that there are currently 5.6 million Texans living in poverty, 2.2 million of them children, and that 17.4% of households in the state struggle with food insecurity.

Many people assume that Texas was not hit as hard by the recession as other states because our unemployment rate is still below the national average. While our unemployment rate is low compared to the U.S. (8.2 versus 9.8 percent, respectively, in November 2010), it is still nearly double where it stood in November 2007 (4.4 percent). In fact, Texas' unemployment rate has been around 8 percent for the last 16 months, which is extremely high given Texas' recent history. This has resulted in nearly one in three Texas children living with a parent who does not have a full-time,

year-round job, making them particularly vulnerable.

When a household falls into poverty, children are exposed to increased parental distress, inadequate childcare arrangements, and poor nutrition. In past recessions, it took many years for employment and incomes to rebound, and low-income families rebound more slowly than others.

Public benefits such as TANF help families bridge the gaps in difficult economic times and are critical in reducing the effects of a recession. Cutting these supports will hurt child and family wellbeing and damage the Texas economy by taking money out of the private economy for critical local businesses such as grocery stores and medical providers.

Although TANF is not perfect, I believe that is an essential part of the safety net for very low-income families with children. These benefits do not provide families with the ability to live a lavish life style, they do provide a life line to families at a critical time in their lives, such as periods of unemployment or disability, or when a newborn joins a family. The goal of TANF is to be a temporary safety net and to help families in need to regain their balance, when a hard time causes them to lose their balance.

TANF provides access to paths out of poverty through services such as job training or counseling for mental health issues. State also uses the block grants for a wide range of work supports, including child care and transportation. For these reasons I support H.R. 2943.

I come to the floor on this noncontroversial bill and as a proud member of the Ways and Means Committee to show the Congress and the country that we are concerned about more than just taxes.

I want to thank Mr. Davis for his leadership in this area and especially

my friend Mr. Doggett, who have stuck with the committee in trying to make certain that we improve the life of those people who are so vulnerable in our society.

To think that one out of five children in America, the United States of America, is living in poverty, to recognize that 46 million people, a family of four makes less than $22,000 is certainly not what has inspired so many people to get out of poverty and move into the middle class, which is the heart of America and the heart of our economy.

This bill does just that. It comes to us to look to give authority to the States to see what works, to make certain that people don't have to stay on welfare, that they can have a goal in being fully employed. And it takes a way the image that we have, as a country, that we applaud people who are being executed, that we applaud those people that don't have health insurance.

No, America is more than that. And during these hard times, we have to make certain that we do as the members of this committee, a classic example is Mr. Doggett, is Mr. Davis, both on a hardworking committee, but care enough about the people in our country to show that this is bipartisan. And the people that are poor, the people that are in need, the people that are without homes and without hope are not Democrats; they're not Republicans. They are people in our country. And we have an obligation to show that there is a need for government. There is a need for caring.

And I am proud to be a member of this committee and a Member of this Congress to show that's what our country is all about.

I want to say just a few words about this. Obviously, I support the extension of the TANF. But I think that there is a real need--and we've been extending it 1 year at a time, 1 year at a time, 1 year at a time for some time--there really is a need to re-look at the whole concept of what this safety net really needs to be.

We wiped out welfare as we know it, as was the phrase in 1996, at a time when the economy in this country was going straight up. Anybody could find a job if they looked for one. And it was very clear that there were efforts in that bill to push people off the rolls and out into the work market. Now, it was possible to do that.

Today, however, you have a situation where there are four people that are looking for every job that's out there. You have many middle class families who have exhausted 99 weeks of unemployment and have nothing in this country except food stamps.

Now, it sort of depends on whether or not we're going to have a middle class in this country when we have a downturn like this and we decide whether we're going to help the middle class make it. We've got foreclosures that won't quit. And we've had no proposals out of the House to do anything about foreclosure prevention.

So you have middle class people who've lost their job, their unemployment is gone, they are now having their house foreclosed, and they look to their government for a safety net and find nothing but food stamps.

In my belief, there is a time when we should help the middle class in this country be able to go through what may be another year or two, we're not quite sure how long it will be, but it should not be that there is no program available to help middle class people who have fallen on very difficult times.